Notes on the nature of logic: an enactivist proposal
Main Article Content
Abstract
Critics often defend that radical enactivism (REC) cannot scale up to explain more sophisticated cognitive activities as in logic and mathematics, which are often held to be constituted by representations. The naturalization of cognition proposed by this theory is then taken to be limited in scope. In order to offer a solution to the scope objection against it, I investigate how REC might be related to a broader pragmatist approach to examine the normativity of logic in the context of the existence of a great plurality of alternative logics. To tackle this problem, I aim at defending a comprehensive enactivist philosophical proposal based on the normativity of our ruled inferential practices. Accordingly, I defend an account of some important connections between logic and normativity, which refuses traditional representationalist, individualist, internalist and intellectualist views of logic and focuses on dynamic and embodied ruled interactions among cognitive agents with their environment. The interpretation to be developed here is that rational obligation should be taken as a normative obligation that binds us together and, in particular, that logical necessity should be taken as a kind of normative coercion, based on normative notions such as rules, authorizations, prohibitions and commitments. If logic, with several different non-classical systems, is mainly normative, and not descriptive, it is possible to naturalize it, meaning that logic is not a real challenge to REC.
Article Details
Copyright Notice
The author of the article or book reviews submitted and approved for publication authorizes the editors to reproduce it and publish it in the journal O que nos faz pensar, with the terms “reproduction” and “publication” being understood in accordance with the definitions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. The article or book reviews may be accessed both via the World Wide Web – Internet (WWW – Internet), and in printed form, its being permitted, free of charge, to consult and reproduce the text for the personal use of whoever consults it. This authorization of publication has no time limit, with the editors of the journal O que nos faz pensar being responsible for maintaining the identification of the author of the article.
References
BRANDOM. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commit- ment. Harvard University Press, 1994.
BRANDOM. “Articulating Reasons”. Cambridge, MA: harvard University Press, 2000.
BROUWER, L.E.J., 1907, Over de Grondslagen der Wiskunde (On the Foundations of Mathematics), Ph.D. thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam. English translation in Brouwer 1975: 11–101.
BROUWER, L.E.J., 1908, “De onbetrouwbaarheid der logische principes” (The Unreliability of the Logical Principles), Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte, 2: 152–158. English translation in Van Atten and Sundholm 2017. An older English translation is in Brouwer 1975: 107–111. doi:10.1016/B978-0-7204-2076-0.50009-X
BUENO, Otavio; COLYVAN, Mark. Logical non-apriorism and the law of non-contradiction. In PRIEST, Graham; BEALL, Jc; ARMOUR-GARB, Bradley P. (eds.), The Law of Non-Contradiction: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 156–175.
CARNAP, R. The Logical Syntax of Language. London: Routledge, 1937.
CARNIELLI, W.; RODRIGUES, A. Towards A Philosophical Understanding Of The Logics Of Formal Inconsistency. Manuscrito 38: 155–184, 2015.
CARNIELLI, W.; RODRIGUES, A. On the Philosophy and Mathematics of the Logics of Formal Inconsistency. In: J.-Y. Beziau; M. Chakraborty; S. Dutta (eds.) New Directions in Paraconsistent Logic, 2016, pp.57–88. Springer.
DUMMETT, Michael A. E. Truth and Other Enigmas. Harvard University Press, 1978.
DUTILH NOVAES, Catarina. Reductio Ad Absurdum From a Dialogical Perspective. Philosophical Studies 173 (10):2605-2628, 2016.
DUTILH NOVAES, Catarina. A dialogical, multi-agent account of the normativity of logic". Dialectica 69, 587-609, 2015.
FIELD, Hartry. What is the normative role of logic? Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):251-268, 2009.
FREGE, G. Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens, Halle a. S.: Louis Nebert, 1879.
FREGE, G. Posthumous Writings. Blackwell, 1979.
HERAS-ESCRIBANO, M. Pragmatism, enactivism, and ecological psychology: towards a unified approach to post-cognitivism. Synthese 198, 337–363 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02111-1
HUTTO, Daniel D.; MYIN, Erik. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.
HUTTO, Daniel D.; MYIN, Erik. Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2017.
MARCOS, J. Logics of Formal Inconsistency. Tese (doutorado) – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, 2004.
NOË, Alva. Action in Perception. MIT Press, 2005.
PEREGRIN, Jaroslav. Meaning as an inferential role. Erkenntnis 64 (1):1-35, 2006.
PRIEST, Graham. In Contradiction: A Study of the Transconsistent. Oxford University Press, 2006.
PRIEST, G.; TANAKA, K.; WEBER, Z. Paraconsistent Logic. In: ZALTA, E. N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2015 Edition.
ROLLA, G. Reconceiving rationality: situating rationality into radically enactive cognition. Synthese 198, 571–590 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02362-y
SELLARS, W. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Robert Brandom (ed.), Harvard University Press.; Cambridge, MA, 1997.
SILVA, M.; CAVALCANTI, I.; MOTA, H. Linguagem e Enativismo: Uma resposta normativa para a objeção de escopo e o problema difícil do conteúdo. Prometheus - Journal of Philosophy, 12(33), 2020. https://doi.org/10.52052/issn.2176-5960.pro.v12i33.13811
VARELA, Francisco J.; THOMPSON, Evan; ROSCH, Eleanor. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press, 1991.
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis (1929-1932). Werkausgabe Band 3. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984.